The nationwide cut “is equivalent to about 16 meals a month for a family of three,” according to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis using the USDA’s “Thrifty Food Plan.” CBPP called the roughly $5 billion annual cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program “unprecedented” in “depth and breadth.”

“If you look across the world, riots always begin typically the same way: when people cannot afford to eat food,” Margarette Purvis, the president and CEO of the Food Bank for New York City, told Salon Monday. Purvis said that the looming cut would mean about 76 million meals “that will no longer be on the plates of the poorest families” in NYC alone – a figure that outstrips the total number of meals distributed each year by the Food Bank for New York City, the largest food bank in the country. “There will be an immediate impact,” she said.

“The fact that they’re going to lose what’s basically an entire week’s worth food” each month, said Purvis, “it’s pretty daunting.” She told Salon that while policymakers “are attempting to punish people for being poor,” and “people are comforted by believing that they know that a person has to have done something wrong in order to be poor,” in reality, “I can tell you that more and more folks have more than one job and are still needing help.” (As I reported last week, audio recorded by a McDonald’s worker-activist showed a counselor on an employee hotline encouraging her to sign up for food stamps because it “takes a lot of the pressure off how much money you spend on groceries.”) Purvis added that cutting food stamps was “not even good business sense,” because each dollar of food stamps infuses over $1.70 of spending into the economy.

“We were all told that these cuts for November 1 would not happen,” said Purvis. When “they decided they were going to take from some of the increases to food stamps” to fund First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” program, she told Salon, “We were told, you know, by the president…these cuts will not happen, we won’t get rid of the program.

Democracy and Class Struggleis pleased to publish an article on Gramsci by Comrade Umberto C from La Voce n. 44 of the (new) Italian Communist Party published in July 2013 on Gramsci and Protracted Revolutionary People's War..In an earlier article on Gramsci this year we indicated that we would be publishing some of the (New) Italian Communist Party's path breaking work on the question of Gramsci and Protracted Peoples War.We also welcome a recent contribution on the same subject from the Revolutionary Initiative in Canada by Comrade Amil K called Towards the War of Position: Gramsci in Continuity and Rupture with Marxism-Leninism.Remember Gramsci understood that the universal was found in the particular, he was a Sardinian who gave expression to the universal idea of Proletarian Revolutionary Order in the context of the new Italian State..Nickglais, Editor of Democracy and Class Struggle.

A film to be watched critically
that gives background to Antonio Gramsci's
Political Thought

The “war of position“ of Gramsci is essentially a paraphrase of the more explicit expression of PRPW that we use, taking it from Mao.“(1)

We gladly publish the article by Comrade Folco R. which shows the contribution by Antonio Gramsci to the development of the strategy of the revolutionary people’s war as a strategy of the socialist revolution in the imperialist countries.

Firstly, because the communist movement in our country absolutely needs to refine his elaboration about the forms of socialist revolution. The more our fight progresses, the more widely the war that we started with the founding of the Party spreads, as the crisis of capitalism drives the masses to enlist in the PRPW, as in the 1943-1945 period a growing number of young people, workers, farmers and housewives joined the Resistance, the more it is necessary that the Party learns to put the general conception of PRPW in concrete initiatives: in campaigns, battles and operations until the mobilization of the broad masses that will establish socialism in Italy and so will give their contribution to the second wave of the proletarian revolution advancing worldwide.

Secondly, to give Antonio Gramsci the place he deserves in the Italian and international communist movement for the work he did. Against the misrepresentation of his work made by Togliatti and his accomplices and successors who have submitted Gramsci as a precursor of peaceful road to socialism, in practice of waiver of the socialist revolution. But also against the anti-Communist use of Gramsci the bourgeois left tries to make these years: it presents him in Italy and in the world as an opponent of the concept and the line personified by Stalin who led the Communist International and the Communist movement until 1956. While in reality it was Gramsci, even if he was segregated in fascist prisons, who developed, in the light of the tasks of the socialist revolution and the experience of the communist movement, the most comprehensive critique of Trotsky and Bukharin‘s conceptions who were the main opponents of Stalin about the orientation to be given to the revolution in the Soviet Union and internationally, and about the line with which pursuing it.

These two reasons amply justify the publication of the contribution of the comrade, although his study of Gramsci’s work is still in progress, which is also reflected by the uncertainty in pointing out the main texts among those relevant to the assimilation of the teachings of Gramsci about the PRPW.

The editors of La Voce

In issue n. 43 of La Voce Umberto C. writes that Gramsci, “the one and only communist leader ... which reflected on the form of the socialist revolution in the imperialist countries, ... developed (see the Prison Notebooks 7, (§ 16), 10 (§ 9), 13 (§7), and others) the theory of the “ war of position”, which, freeing ourselves from the language imposed by fascist prison censorship, today we would call protracted revolutionary people’s war.”

The Protracted Revolutionary People’s War (PRPW) is socialist revolution that is being built. The PRPW, as conception, is opposed to the conception of common sense (that is to say the current ways of speaking and thinking, the result of clergy and bourgeoisie’s dominant role) that the socialist revolution would break out, that would be a spontaneous rebellion of masses of the people forced to intolerable conditions. The communist movement at its beginning (1848) inherited this conception and understood the socialist revolution as a revolution that breaks out, the way of the revolutions of the past. This conception of the socialist revolution, anyway, was at odds with the experience that the communist movement was developing. The Communists little by little realized this contrast between their conception of the socialist revolution and the practice of socialist revolution.

Engels was the first who, in 1895, exhibited in an organic way the concept that the socialist revolution was by its nature a form different from the revolutions of the past, that does not break out but it is being built.(2) But the socialist parties of the time (which were connected to each other in the Second International) did not accept his discovery. Even leaders of those parties who professed themselves Marxists, such as the German Social Democratic Party, joined Marxism in a dogmatic way, albeit in different gradations. Communism, socialism and socialist revolution were articles of faith, which were not put in the lines for guiding the current activity of the parties. Precisely for this reason they were unable to cope with their task, as the events of 1914 blatantly demonstrated. Among the socialist parties of the time, only Lenin’s party put Engels’ conception in his practice, but it did it without making Engels’ conception a weapon in the struggle against dogmatism, opportunism and economism.(3) He built the revolution in Russia as a PRPW, but without being aware of it (so confirming that the practice is generally richer than the theory). Similarly, Stalin and the Communist International in the early part of the last century led a successful socialist revolution internationally as PRPW of which the Soviet Union was the world red base, but did not reach full consciousness of what they were doing. This gave way in the Communist International to dogmatism, opportunism and economism that came to light openly in the 50s of last century.

Mao Tse-tung was the first party leader who developed the conception of the PRPW as a strategy of socialist revolution. Mao Tse-tung, however, enunciated this conception as a strategy of the revolution in China, tying it to the specific features of Chinese social and political situation (Why Can Red Power Exist in China? - October 1928 Selected Works of Mao Tse -tung, vol. 2 Editions Social Relations, available on the website of the (n)PCI http://www.nuovopci.it/arcspip/article0c16.html in Italian language).

Later it was indicated as the strategy of the revolution for all the colonial, semi-colonial and neo-colonial countries in which the mass of the population was still made up of peasants.

Only with the rise of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the third and higher stage of communist thought it was acquired the conception that the PRPW is the universal strategy of the socialist revolution, the strategy that the Communists must follow in every country in order to win.(4)

Gramsci in his condition as a prisoner of the fascists from 1926 to his death in 1937 did not lead the revolutionary process in Italy, but working out the experience of the socialist revolution in Italy and of the other imperialist countries and also analyzing the way in which the Bolsheviks had won in Russia, has brought important contributions to the formulation of the strategy of PRPW.(5)

Below I expose the main aspects of PRPW that Gramsci has more or less widely developed in his Prison Notebooks. The quotations from Gramsci or others are in italics. The emphases in bold are mine.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

That the political
and financial circumstances which led to this election process are politically
circumspect and financially unsavory will be argued in the following. To begin;
this not a general election but one for a second Constitutional Assembly
– an unheard of and ludicrous situation as it being called for and organized by
the same forces that rendered the first one ineffective. Marx’s off-quoted
epigram was never more apposite; with the first as tragedy and the second as
farce. Because they intend to use the election as a mandate to write their own
constitution is why the Maoists are not getting caught in this particular
snare. They have said they will tear-up any such constitution which will have
been written in New Delhi anyway and, as Kiran said, make one: “in the
streets”. Many are aware, not just the Maoists, that the proceedings were
therefore triggered as a stratagem of Prachanda’s to exclude them and their
allies and so clear the way for such an outcome. That is why the High Level
Political Committee was set up earlier this year, which under the conniving of
Prachanda was a carve-up between the four parties. Similarly Chief Justice
Regmi is Prachanda’s placeman appointed as Prime Minister to give an apolitical
gloss to these electoral machinations and, if necessary, carry the
responsibility for employment of force
majeure.

Against declining
socio-economic conditions these political games have intensified a palpable
general cynicism covering a wide spectrum of Nepali society. (But not precisely
measurable as opinion polls are banned in run-ups to elections).One commentator summed it up:

“This has thrown
the country into a marsh of four-party dictatorship. Because of the four
parties’ bullying, 33 political parties say they have to boycott the
forthcoming elections.”

(Bhagirath Basnet,
Republica. October 9th.)

It is accepted
therefore that the new CA will be no different in composition and that people
are not being offered a real choice as the four-party syndicate has rigged the
system to ensure they come out on top. The party leaders in this respect have
ensured their survival by standing in multiple constituencies and putting
forward nonentities in each other’s electoral areas. Thus greasy pacts and
greased palms are the reality behind the espousal of ‘democratic’ values and
practices and the grandiose, but empty manifestos.

It signifies the
continuation of the status quo as it keeps control of the major parties in the
hands of the upper castes, and the hegemony of Brahmanism over all political
and administrative institutions. Hence Dalits – who make up 20% of the civil
population – Muslims – who make up 10% and the Janajatis’ – who add a further
37%; along with other, smaller marginalized groups are excluded from the
corridors of power and influence by this ongoing fix. For the Dalits
particularly, because despite the repeal of the Rana’s 1854 mulikiain – which codified discrimination against them – by King Mahendra
in 1963, like the noble Ambedkar’s similar attempt in the 1949 Indian
Constitution, have proved only words on paper and in reality discrimination
against them is still rife in Indian and Nepalese society. The occasional token
Dalit or Muslim candidate/delegate might be touted by the parties but the
predominant power elites remain Brahmins and Chetris, who combined comprise
just over 25% of the population, and whose monopoly of power over the majority
marginalized; politically, culturally and economically, continue the unresolved
tensions that produced the People’s War. It is one important reason why the CPN
– Maoists have retained overwhelming support among these historically
marginalised groups.

It is pretty clear
that the present political cartel is pushing this electoral extravaganza as a
means of political self-preservation and monetary aggrandizement; as the weekly
magazine, Nepali Times put it in an editorial:

“If this was a
truly fair and independent election and if the (pre-election) surveys are the
true pulse of the people, most of the disgraced leaders of the past four years
should be voted out.”

Friday, October 25, 2013

These fascist military units are responsible for butchering two peasant leaders -- Gabriel Alindao and Benjie Planos, detaining and torturing two Lumad minors, and conducting massive harassment against the peasant masses of Loreto, Agusan del Sur.

The New People's Army raided the 26th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army detachment in Barangay (village) Mansanitas, Loreto, captured at the village center five CAFGU paramilitary forces, four of whom were armed village officials, and confiscated two shotgun rifles and one. 357 pistol on 24 October at 11:00 am.

Red fighters also thwarted a platoon of reinforcement forces of the 26th Infantry Battalion in a gunfight that yielded at least five fatalities on the military side. The Eastern Mindanao Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines responded by sending two military helicopters that dropped 14 bombs in the community; the helicopters later secured their fatalities.

Thursday's tactical offensive was the NPA's campaign against a fascist Army unit and its paramilitary machinery responsible for butchering two peasant leaders -- Gabriel Alindao and Benjie Planos of the peasant group Kahugpungan Alang sa Kalambuan sa Kauswagan or KASAKA -- detaining and torturing two civilian Lumad minors, and conducting massive harassment and counter-revolutionary drive against the peasant masses in Loreto, Agusan del Sur.

Captured and considered prisoners of war (POWs) were barangay captain Lito Andalique, barangay kagawad (councilor) Marvin Bantuasan, Crisanto Piodos, and Balaba Andalique, and CAFGU tribal member Pepe Subla. The five are currently accorded rights as POWs, their health and safety at the auspices of the NPA's custodial force.

Nothing can be so farther from the truth as to the far-fetched claim by Eastmincom Commander Lt. Gen. Rainier Cruz that the arrest of the barangay officials was the NPA's act of involving itself in the forthcoming reactionary exercise of barangay elections.

The five POWs are not ordinary civilians and reelectionist village officials but are counter-revolutionary paramilitary forces, and are thus legitimate targets of the NPA. The POWs are psychological warfare agents, who banned the masses from going to their farms and forcing them to remain at the village centers, in a blatant attempt to control their movement. These POWs have campaigned hard against the NPAs, harassed peasant leaders, and strongly endorsed the entry of palm oil and mining projects -- projects that will eventually dislocate the masses and deprive Lumads of their ancestral domain.

In the midst of the US-Aquino regime's intensified counter-revolutionary campaign, backed up by a fascist mayor in the person of Dario Otaza, the revolutionary forces are persevering in their anti-feudal and anti-fascist struggle, expanding numerous village councils while putting up welfare projects to sustain the basic needs of the masses. It is only warranted for the NPA to protect the successes of the People's Democratic Government by punishing the enemy and enforcing revolutionary justice.

Democracy and Class Struggle has recently been sent this work of G.N Saibaba and we are pleased to publish it has it address's some fundamental questions about displacement and development in India.The article is longer than what we normally publish but the effort in seriously studying this document will be repaid with deepened knowledge of Indian reality.The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future

--Marx, Capital, Vol I

An epitome of beauty, serenity and colonial charm…

--An advertisement for The Carlton, a luxury hotel created by the Rahejas in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu

Introduction

Land, development and displacement has once again become the central point of debate in India. Curiously the debate is on industrial development ostensibly, under capitalism. Suddenly it has dawned upon the learned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his policy experts that land and agriculture cannot be the main basis for the economy of a country like India that is marching ahead in the 21st century. The often erudite, soft spoken PM has even gone to the extent of calling all those, who oppose the present road map of prosperity and growth laid out by his government, anti-development and hence anti-national. The Prime Minister has equated the present policy prescription for growth tempered by the diktats of the World Bank and IMF with the ‘national interest’. Dr. Manmohan Singh is not alone in his concern about the future of the so-called ‘second generation reforms’, otherwise known as Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG).

He is joined by the likes of Dr. Amartya Sen who is always ready to ‘grade’ the ‘performance’ of the Indian economy. In one of his interviews to The Telegraph while trying hard to pull the CPM-led West Bengal government out of the ignominy of Nandigram and Singur the Nobel Laureate has made it loud and clear that whatever is happening in the form of Special Economic Zones throughout the sub-continent is development through industrialisation that India badly needs. And make no mistake. This development package will inevitably have to exploit land that was / is fertile or otherwise. Gone are the days when agriculture alone could provide to the developmental needs of the Indian economy which as per Sen the economist is poised for a growth of more than 9 percent, mainly propelled through foreign direct investments. At best, it is nothing but Sen and the art of consensus building. Incidentally, when the people of Singur was protesting against land being taken from them against their will, Telegraph had carried photographs of CPM cadre moving in hordes on motorcycles in Singur with red flag and the life size portrait of Ratan Tata trying to ‘educate’ the people about the virtues of the TATAs as the harbinger of industrialization in post-47 India. Perhaps both, the Nobel laureate and the lumpen brigade of the CPM, were conveying the same, albeit, in different ways.

It’s official now. Agriculture cannot be the main provider of employment for the vast sections of the masses abounding rural India. In fact, the first official warning came in the form of an innocuous survey of the NSSO—about which the government had made a song and dance, not to mention the media that had gone overboard—proclaiming that about 40 percent or more of the peasantry in India would want to rid their lives of agriculture.

Yet in the maze of this publicity blitzkrieg by the proponents of LPG, what is carefully ignored is the question of development itself. The question as usual is deliberately posed in a manner where the pertinent aspects on the ramifications of a development model—that is totally reliant on foreign capital / dependent on imperialism—for the vast sections of the masses of this country hardly gets any mention.

What is argued is that displacement is inevitable in development. The rest of the arguments are just a logical corollary of this initial refrain. Since the peasantry cannot provide labour opportunities through agriculture anymore for the bulk of the masses as required by the circumstances coupled with the diminishing returns for the farmers with a high input cost and low market price / support price for the output, there is no more incentive for them to continue in the same productive activity.

Amidst all this effort of consensus building are the shocking and gripping accounts of violence and repression from the killing fields of Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Nandigram, Raigada, Jagatsinghpur and Singur. When this is being written the CPI (M) has resorted to the worst carnage in Nandigram which even the die hard supporters of CPI (M) itself have shockingly compared it to the worst genocide that followed the post-Godhra riots in the state of Gujarat in 2002. The scope of this article does not permit to deal with the entire happenings in Nandigram. It may be dealt in a separate piece.

Is displacement due to development or the development of displacement an inevitable thing like ones own shadow, a necessary evil that has to be lived with when one thinks about development? Or is there a possibility of a development which is free of any form of displacement; any form of violence on the people? Is this phenomenon of displacement due to development a new feature in the trajectory that India followed post-47? These are vital questions we cannot shy away from if we are serious in fighting the four dreaded Ds—Displacement, Destruction, Destitution and Death, especially in a social reality like South Asia and that too at a time when private capital—foreign and domestic—is considered as the main vehicle of implementation of the policies of LPG.

Six were killed and not less than three were wounded from the troops of the 61st Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army in two succeeding ambushes launched by the units of the New People's Army under the Jose Percival Estocada, Jr. Command, Central Panay in the town of Tapaz, Capiz on 7 and 9 October 2013.

The first ambush happened along Panay River in the boundaries of Barangays (villages) Nawayan and Tacayan around 06:45am, while a 15-man unit of the Alpha Company were passing the banks of the river. In the first burst of fire, seven fascist soldiers were immediately hit and fell into the Panay River with their firearms. Six of them died.

The second ambush happened in Sitio Malangsa, Barangay Abangay, past 1:00 in the afternoon, while the troops of the Bravo Company were marching to reinforce. Two fascist troops were wounded.

The pretentions of the 61st Infantry Battalion that they are protectors of human rights were laid bare when they strafed the houses of the Tumanduk people in Barangay Nayawan that killed Pastor Mirasol and wounded Rolando Diaz, Sr., both farmers. They also beat up Dario Gilbaliga, a pastor, and Ered Gilbaliga, an old man, and also a barangay official from Abangay, accusing them of being part of the unit that conducted the ambush.

Henry Diaz, of Nayawan, was also beaten while on the way home after accompanying his child to school in the adjacent barangay of Tacayan a few days after the incident.

Out of shame, Maj. Rey Tiongson, spokesperson of the 3rd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army, denied that they have many casualties and even claimed that Pastor Mirasol and Rolando Diaz, Sr. were members of the NPA. It may be recalled that a few months back, the officials of 3rd Infantry Division proudly declared that the NPA in Central Panay is weakening because of many of its members has surrendered and are losing the support of the masses.

These two successful ambushes launched by the Red fighters is their response to the strong opposition of the Tumanduk people to the construction of two mega dams in the rivers of Jalaur and Panay, and to exact justice for the many crimes and violations of human rights of the 61st Infantry Battalion.

Draft Joint Statement on the Acquittal of the Convicts of Laxmanpur bathe dalit massacre for endorsement

We the undersigned are extremely distressed and outraged by the Patna High Court judgement on the 9th of October acquitting the murderers of the infamous and shocking Laxmanpur Bathe Dalit masacre in the Arwal district of Bihar.

In the year 1997, Ranveer Sena, a dreaded upper caste feudal private army of mostly Bhumihar and Rajput landlords descended on the dalit tola of Laxmanpur bathe in the broad daylight and masacred 58 dalits, which includes 27 women and 10 children.

The cruelity and bestiality of the upper caste vigitante attack of the Ranajir Sena was such that it didn’t spare even 3 year old children.

Atrocities on the dalits, sexual violence and exploitation of dalit women, including genocides and day to day humiliation that the dalits have been goingon since centuries.

From the time when this shameful graded inequality, brahmanical social order came into existence, which is India specific caste-feudalism; after the transfer of power by the colonial masters to their desi compradors in India, the ruling classes of India had betrayed its so called social contract with the Indian people which it had promised after taking over the reins of state power from their imperial masters.

From the Nehruvian era, Kilvemani, Tsunduru, Permakudi, Khairlanji and Karamachedu to Bathanitola is the bleeding post colonial history of caste violence and genocides on dalits in this country. which aspires to become a superpower, boasts of being the largest democracy, liberal rights discourse, being its legitimising ideology which Indian state has inscribed in its constitution.

All those various rights enshrined in the Indian constitution is turned into a sick joke every moment. Indian liberalism is the most despicable fraudulence which the Indian ruling elites have done to their toiling subaltern masses.

Throusands of fake encounters, custodial deaths and tortures, genocides and mass gang rapes of oppressed nationalities, minorities, dalits, adivasis, ethnic minorities and other marginal groups of the Indian caste Hindu society. Indian state has made made mockery of the very term of liberalism. The day to day caste violence and acquital of armed, feudal, vigilante private armies clearly proves that Indian state is a upper caste Hindu fascist state. From police to judiciary, Indian state stinks of extreme caste prejudices towards oppressed nationalities,religeous minorities, dalits, sexual,linguistic, ethnic and other marginal groups.

The district and sessions court of Patna in its judgement against Laxmanpurbathe masacre had convicted 26 armed goons of Ranveer Sena. The district sessions court had pronomunecd death sentence for 16 Ranavir sena members and life sentence for 10 other members in 2010.

The court had acquited 19 accused for lack of evience.

The then district and sessions judge in Patna in his judgement had remarked about the masacre that ‘the Laxmanpur Bathe Dalit masacre was a stigma on civil society.’ we are horified by the casteist nature of the Indian judiciary which is yet to have a proper representation of dalit judges.

The casteist mindset of the judiciary has been evident right from the transfer of power to the desi elites in 1947.

In the infamous Kilvemani massacre judgement in Tamilnadu, the trial judge had noted about the murderer landlord that “the person of his social status will not indulge in such acts”. In the Bhanwri Devi gang-rape judgement in Rajasthan, the judges had noted “how can upper-caste men rape lower caste women”. This clearly indicates the anti dalit, upper caste, brahminical mindset of the Indian judiciary.

In the Laxmanpur bathe acquittal judgement, the Patna High Court had noted that ‘we are of the view that the prosecution witnesses are not reliable and so all the convicted persons are entitled for benefit of doubt.’ So all accused were set free. This clearly indicates the insidious casteist nexus of upper caste landlords, police and bureaucracy and judiciary. This same casteist Patna high court last year had acquitted the Ranajir Sena butchers of Bathanitola in which 21 Dalits were killed. Apart from that, the casteist judiciary of Bihar have acquitted the upper caste private armies in Miyapur, narayanpur, Khagdibigha and nagribazar dalit masacres. Successive judgements in cases relating to massacres/killings of dalits/minorities/poorer sections of the people, acquitting the accused and conspirators and at the same time awarding stricter punishments to even unrelated people of dalits/minorities/poorer sections in cases involving powerful is a matter of grave concern.

One has to see the cycle of violence and counter violence in Central Bihar, the context of the class struggle which is being raged by the revolutionary peasant resistance movements against the upper caste feudal lords in central bihar. Decadent feudalism in its death bed becomes most obscene and perverse; so it perpetrates the most sadistic and brutal violence and masacres on the toiling dalit men and women. The post-colonial India has seen more than 100 dalit massacres in Bihar itself. To counter the demand for land and dignity by the underdog who were organised by the communist revolutionaries. The violence that engulfed the flaming fields of central Bihar is the rusult of the sharpening contradictions between the archaic, medieval and extremely exploitative agrarian relations. Which results in carnages and sexual violence on dalit women. The most horrifying examples of these gruesome massacres and medieval barbarism are: Belchi, Pipra, Parasbigha, Tiskhora, Laxmanpur bathe, Bathanitola, Miyanpur, Nagri Bazar, and so on. The list is endless.

The above violence must be seen in the context of the struggle of dalits for land, dignity and against sexual violence on dalit women. This is a direct result of the complete failure of Indian state of implement radical land reforms and ensure the dignity of the dalits. The conflict in Laxmanpur bathe was about the dalits’ rightful ownership of the government land, i.e., 50 bighas of gair mazaura land for which the dalits were entitled and the upper caste landlords wanted to forcibly usurp.

The upper caste landlords raised dreaded private armies like Ranveer Sena, lorik sena, bhumi sena, bramarshi sena, sunlight sena, diamond liberation front, savarn liberation front, brhamarshi sena etc. These decadent feudal vigilante armies have masacred more than 1 thousand dalit men, women and children. Thanks to the heroic revoultionary peasant resistance momement central bihar all these private armies were forced to surrender. Therefore, history has proved that only the underdog when it gets organised and hits back can only break its chains. recently there was a gang-rape and murder of a dalit girl student in jind, Haryana where the police in connaivance with the upper caste rapists proved it to be a suicide and the re was no rape. Around a month after that another dalit girl student in sirsa, haryana was gangraped by upper caste lumpen youths, her unconscious body was found in the next morning. the police refused to file the rape FIR under the pressure of the upper caste. we are firmly convinced that the dalits are not going to get any justice from the upper caste hindu indian state apparatus. therefore we appeal to our dalit brothers and sisters to get organised and hit back at the perpetrators. we appeal to the radical left forces, the radical Ambedkarites, the democratic right movement, and the womens movement to form a principled joint forum against atrocities and masacres on dalits and sexual violence on dalit women.

We condemn the blatant anti dalit upper caste brahminical judgement of the Patna High Court. We urge the radicl left forces, the womens’ movement, the dalit movement and the democratic right movement to join hands to fight a decisive street battle against the decadent feudal upper caste brahminical patriarchal and communal fascist forces in India.

In Arabic it literally means 'Peace', but this usage is in line with the Persian usage, with the meaning 'Salute'.

This greeting is common among all communists in India, and with Naxals who often use this phrase, e.g. on recruitment posters.[1]'
In Pakistan, the equivalent phrase "Surkh Salam" (Urdu: سرخ سلام‎) is used interchangeably.

A MESSAGE FROM COMRADE GANAPATHY GENERAL SECRETARY OF CPI MAOIST "Our party, which further carries on the legacy of Naxalbari, has always seen the New Democratic revolution we carry out in India as an integral part of the world socialist revolution, our Party, ie the Communist Party, as a detachment of the world proletarian vanguard, the PLGA as a detachment of the world proletarian army and the Revolutionary People's Committees established here as a integral part of the global dictatorship of the proletariat or global socialist state. The uncountable and invaluable victims which the people and the comrades gave in our revolution, are also an integral part of the countless beloved martyrs of the world socialist revolution in each country. With this understanding, the different genuine revolutionary currents in India, from Naxalbari onwards, realized solidarity campaigns to support the revolutions and people's movements in other countries, incuding the well-known solidarity campaigns with the revolutions in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and the national liberation struggles in Palestine, the Tamils in Sri Lanka , etc., as well as the resistance wars of the Iraqi and Afghan peoples"see also :http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/hindutva-fascism-what-it-is-and-how-to.html

Monday, October 21, 2013

The suicide blast that devastated a bus in Volgograd was meant to take place in Moscow, a source in the Russian Investigative Committee told RT.

The investigation also revealed that the bomber had conspirers in the capital who are on the wanted list.

According to the source, the investigation shows that Naida Asiyalova - the 30-year-old native of the Republic of Dagestan who is believed to be the woman behind the Monday bus bomb blast in Volgograd - conspired with her partner, Dmitry Sokolov, and two other militants to carry out a terrorist attack in the Russian capital.

Two of the conspirers, Ruslan Kazanbiyev and Kurban Omarov, both 25, had already arrived to Moscow and were waiting for Asiyalova, RT’s source said. Both men are wanted in Russia for carrying out a twin terrorist bombing in Dagestan in May 2012, in which 14 people were killed and over 100 injured.
Voice of Russia, RT

Democracy and Class Struggle says Prince Bandar or Qatar are top of our list of suspects in view of his threat/warning to President Putin over Russian support for Syria for Sochi Olympics .

A female suicide bomber Naida Asiyalova blew herself up on a city bus in southern Russia on Monday, killing six people and injuring about 30 others, officials said.

The attack in Volgograd added to security fears ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The suspected bomber was from the North Caucasus, a region in southern Russia where an Islamic insurgency has been simmering for more than a decade following two separatist wars in Chechnya. Prince Bandar boasted that he controlled the Chechens in a meeting earlier this year in Russia..

Bombs on buses was a militant Islamic form of protest in China in the 1990's.

I lived in China in the 1990's when bombs were exploding on buses killing innocent people placed by Islamic Terrorists operating from an office in Washington DC in USA.

There was little reporting of these terror acts in Western media at the time.

"A criminal case has been opened under
articles outlining terrorism, murder and the illegal use of firearms."

Saudi Prince Bandar on Terrorism in Russia:

”As an example, I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us, and they will not move in the Syrian territory’s direction without coordinating with us. These groups do not scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role or influence in Syria’s political future.”

At 9.15am on Friday October 21st 1966, after several days of heavy rain, a huge slag tip above the town of Aberfan in South Wales suddenly liquified and poured down the mountain. The black tidal wave demolished properties in its path and engulfed the Pantglas Junior School in seconds.

Of the 144 people who lost their lives that day, 116 were children. The tragedy was totally preventable.

The National Coal Board had been warned time and time again of the dangers of dumping slag in such a geologically unstable area above towns.

They chose to ignore the warnings claiming it wan't profitable for them to move the slag tips to safer locations.

After the disaster, donations from all over the world poured in for the shattered community. However, most of the money never reached Aberfan. Instead the Government gave it to the National Coal Boad so that they could move other slag tips overlooking other towns in South Wales.

The great Welsh writer and broadcaster Gwyn Thomas delivered his own moving tribute to the victims of the tragedy on the BBC the morning of the mass funeral. This is an excerpt from his eulogy

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr / The Great Unrest says forty five years ago Aberfan impacted the political and social landscape of Wales and reminded many of us who had forgotten we were Welsh - to be reminded of the consequences of British Coalboard Rule in the Mining Valleys, just has Tryweryn some years earlier had shown who ruled Wales and it wasn't the Welsh.

Friday, October 18, 2013

New research shows many so-called experts who appeared on television making the case for U.S. strikes on Syria had undisclosed ties to military contractors.

A new report by the Public Accountability Initiative identifies 22 commentators with industry ties. While they appeared on television or were quoted as experts 111 times, their links to military firms were disclosed only 13 of those times.

The report focuses largely on Stephen Hadley who served as National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush. During the debate on Syria, he appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg TV.

None of these stations informed viewers that Hadley currently serves as a director of the weapons manufacturer Raytheon that makes Tomahawk cruise missiles widely touted as the weapon of choice for bombing Syria.

He also owns over 11,000 shares of Raytheon stock, which traded at all-time highs during the Syria debate.

Listen to Kevin Connor of the Public Accountability Initiative, a co-author of the report.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

The parliamentary elections of 2014 are now casting their shadow ahead. The nationwide elections on a five-year schedule have become a festival, with the decorations manufactured by the media monopoly and the parliamentary parties. The prospects are dismal for any sign of intelligent engagement with crucial issues. Instead, we are to be subjected -- by the tacit agreement of our rulers -- to a mixture of social politics in the repulsive form of communalist agitation, and economic discussions in which "reform" and "development" mean abject subjection to the interests of U.S. capital and its domestic plutocratic satellites.

The recent anointment of Narendra Modi as BJP Prime Ministerial candidate has added momentum as we slide down this path. The real issue of the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 under the criminal supervision of Narendra Modi as Chief Minister now comes to the fore only to counter the "Vikash Purush" of Gujarat. It looks as if there will not be much difference from previous experience -- either fear of Modi will push a slapdash majority behind another five years of Chidambaram & Co corruption and economic polarization, or a BJP-led government will follow the same "free market" policies accompanied by a small dose of its communal program. One way or another, the electoral fraud of "choice" will be accomplished. But looked at from a longer perspective, things may be moving toward more dramatic events.

For the great majority -- those to whom the price of onions is a very serious daily concern -- life has been increasingly difficult. The Manmohan Singh-Chidambaram regime is worn out and mired in endless scams and corruption. For reasons with which we are all too familiar, the real alternative from the Left will not be an available option in the Great Electoral Festival. The RSS has realized that large sections of people desire change -- and would not bother to analyze what is the change that the RSS and its political affiliate BJP stand for. One should not ignore the recent report of the meeting between BJP veteran LK Advani and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat. It is most unusual for the RSS to come out with a statement on the meeting between two top leaders. These relations are normally presented as unofficial. The BJP is now openly under the control of the RSS. On this occasion, the RSS forced all dissenting senior leaders of the BJP to acquiesce in declaring Modi as the PM candidate. The RSS not just appoints the BJP's leadership but also controls the organisation even in micro matters. What this means is that all those who expect a new BJP government to follow a centre-right path independent from RSS control are mistaken. This is not a second version of the Vajpayee experience, when Hindutva initiatives were sidelined in the interest of pushing the "free market reforms" under which we have suffered now for more than two decades. The lesson the RSS have drawn from the 2004 election is that a new BJP-led national government following the "free market reforms" path will in its turn be rejected; they believe that 2014 offers an opportunity for a long-lasting domination.

Param Vaibhav Ke Path Par (On the Road to Great Glory) written by Sadanand Damodar Sapre, and published in 1997 by Suruchi Prakashan, Jhandewalan, New Delhi, the central publication house of the RSS, lists the many dozens of organisations maintained by the RSS in India. Many of these organisations have been put together in a true fascist and clandestine manner. For instance while giving the details of Hindu Jagaran Manch (HJM), the book says, "From the point of view of Hindu awakening this kind of forums (HJM) at present are active in 17 states with different names like 'Hindu Manch' in Delhi, 'Hindu Munani' in Tamil nadu, 'Hinduekjut' in Maharashtra. These are forums, not associations or organizations, that's why it is not required to have membership, registration and elections". It is clear that these work together to avoid scrutiny by law and government. Such an organisational mode provides an opportunity for the RSS to disown anybody, as convenient. BJP, RSS, VHP and other Sangh outfits on 8th September held a meeting to discuss coordination strategy in preparation for Lok Sabha polls. The conclave discussed the issues that need to be taken to the people from the block level upwards. They also said that the meeting would "chalk out strategy" for better coordination between Sangh organisations. The Sangh outfits, it is said, plan to carry out programmes to reach out to all sections -- minorities, SC, OBCs, tribals, women and the young -- in tandem. This is a programme that dispenses with "allies" -- the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is preparing to take on the rest of the political parties.

One key to their confidence is belief that they now have the support of key centers of capital, even beyond what Vajpayee was able to achieve. And there is reason to believe that is the case given the hype from the corporate media on the issue of "Gujarat Model" with the headlines "Modi moves centre-stage!", "Modi storms in as the BJP's PM candidate", "It's Narendra Modi vs Rahul Gandhi!", "Modi wants to serve the nation". Looking forward, the corporate and financial masters might well prefer the efficiency with which Modi has implemented the neo-liberal policies in Gujarat. As a review of Atul Sood's Poverty Amidst Prosperity: Essays on the Trajectory of Development of Gujaratsums up, the 'rule of law' in Gujarat has meant more of 'political culture of authoritarianism', which might explain the high incidence of labour unrest in Gujarat, but interestingly "it is this culture of authoritarianism, which gives faith and belief to the investor, to invest in Gujarat, even when this authoritarianism has manifested itself more recently in spectacular form in acts of violence against the religious minorities, scheduled tribes and lower castes."

As reported in the IndianExpress earlier this year, Anil Ambani, head of India's third-largest telecommunications company, sitting beside Modi on the dais of Vibrant Gujarat-2013, said "Narendrabhai has Arjuna-like clarity of vision. Narendrabhai literally is the lord of men, a leader among leaders and the king among kings." Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, who flanked Modi on the other side, described the CM as "a leader with a grand vision". Describing Gujarat's progress as "stunning", Ron Somers, the president of US-India Business Council, said Modi had set a new benchmark of "progress trumps politics". Even the unofficial EU boycott of Modi has now been ended over a lunch in residence of Michael Steiner, Germany's envoy to India in January. The boycott stemmed from the 2002 pogroms in Gujarat. The U.S. State Department is yet to reconsider its 2005 decision to revoke Modi's visa, but when it does one should not be surprised.

In our mainstream media dissent in Modi's Gujarat is rarely mentioned. It would appear that, unlike other states, farmers' protests or acts of violence by disadvantaged groups do not seem to occur. As Praful Biswai writes, the reason is the "lionising of Mr. Modi by Indian businessmen and the corporate media. They depict him as a Knight in Shining Armour who will rescue India from economic stagnation, poverty, and missed opportunities towards 'progress,' and promote the 'Gujarat Model' of development. . . . Big Business loves the 'Gujarat Model' precisely because it likes imbalances biased towards private industry and because Modi lavishes favours upon capital through huge tax write-offs."

The RSS also counts on evidence of increasing religiosity. According to the 2007 IBN-CNN-Hindustan Times State of the Nation poll (conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies), cited by Meera Nanda in her book The God Market: How Globalization Is Making India More Hindu, "[a]mong Indians, the level of religiosity has gone up considerably during the last five years. While 30 per cent said they had become more religious during the last five years, only 5 per cent mentioned in negative." The same survey, says Nanda, "also found that education and exposure to modern urban life seems to make Indians more, not less religious: 'urban educated Indians are more religious than their rural and illiterate counterparts . . . religiosity has increased more in small towns and cities than in villages.'"

Nanda perfectly assesses the present condition:

Popular Hinduism is undergoing a great resurgence. . . . [T]he rich and the poor alike are turning to gods and gurus; pujaris, astrologers, vastu shastris, spiritual advisers are all doing a thriving business. What may seem like a paradox, the resurgence of popular Hinduism is happening not against the grain of Indian secularism, but because of it. The Indian brand of secularism has allowed the state to maintain an intimate and nurturing relationship with the majority religion. As the neo-liberal state has entered into a partnership with the private sector, a cosy triangular relationship has emerged between the state, the corporate sector, and the Hindu establishment. . . . The state-temple-corporate complex is creating new institutional spaces where Hinduism is renewing itself so as to remain relevant to the new social context created by the global political economy. But in the process of renewing itself, it is also taking on nationalistic overtones by turning rituals into politicized assertions of Hindu identity. This process of converting ritual spaces into politicized public spaces is so commonplace, so banal, and so much a part of our collective common sense that it passes unnoticed -- and unchecked. . . . [O]rdinary Hindu rituals end up merging the worship of god with the worship of the nation.

To harvest political power on this fertile ground, RSS has now overtly taken control of its political wing BJP and dreams of a far deeper turnover than that achieved in 1998. They are preparing to say and do whatever it takes to win power now in their own right, using different tactics for different regions, segments of the society -- if in some places they are using economic agenda then in other places the core issues of Ram Temple, abolition of Article 370 in Kashmir and Uniform Civil Code. They are even changing their stand in some cases where the situation is going against their vote bank. After the brutal murder of Dr Narendra Dabholkar, leading crusader in the anti-superstition movement, suddenly the BJP and Shiv Sena are no longer opposing the Maharashtra Eradication of Blind Faith Bill. In short we can expect no lie too big, no position too inconsistent, if it brings the RSS closer to power.

Led by the blood-stained Modi, the RSS-BJP-Sangh Parivar is moving on to the next step in seizing power nationwide as a force properly described as fascist, that is "primarily a specific type of politics, involving radical authoritarianism, militarized activism, and the drive for a centralizing repressive state, with a radical-nationalist, communalist, and frequently racialist creed, and violent antipathy for both liberal democracy and socialism"1 Neo-liberal policies and "legal" repression have pulverized the masses away from collective activities to change their life, the only decisive barrier to this development. In the event of what the mass media would call a "stunning victory" -- even if it falls short of Parliamentary majorities -- it would be a mistake to expect successful resistance from the totally discredited Congress regime, yet less from regional "secular" corrupt politicians who have collaborated with the BJP in the past and will do so again.

We are describing a course of events that to us seems possible, but by no means certain. Yet the danger is now clear, and is the result of over twenty years of neo-liberal "reforms". What can decent political people do? The parliamentary Left stumbles toward the futile mistake of unprincipled alliances with corrupt "secular" politicians -- but the only correct course is a turn to the left, a mass mobilisation based on opposition not only to the threat of Hindutva fascism but also to the breeding ground of that danger, neo-liberalism. The RSS, on their own terms, are gearing up for an all-out assault; we must prepare to fight back on ours.